


Take me apart and build a better person with the pieces

by asterCrash



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, No Spoilers, Robots, maybe a content warning for hands-on maintenance?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 01:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14125092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterCrash/pseuds/asterCrash
Summary: After a stressful mission, 2B is hurting in a way she doesn't know how to repair.





	Take me apart and build a better person with the pieces

“What if it was me? What if YorHa told you to hunt me down and deactivate me?”

2B was silent for a time. She struggled to understand the hypothetical, to put it into a frame of reference she could work from.

“If I was ordered to deactivate you… I would not be able to follow those orders efficiently.”

“Wow,” 9S said to her response, disbelief turning to anger. “Wow. That’s really as far as it goes for you, isn’t it?”

2B frowned. She had miscommunicated. She was not made for this kind of problem solving. Interactions with other YorHa units were supposed to be limited to commands in the field. Their relationship was supposed to begin and end with the mission. That she was capable of hypothetical thought at all was in order to successfully anticipate the actions of the enemy. That she was capable of any flexibility with her orders was purely to ensure that she remained an uninhibited engine of destruction in the face of changing circumstances on the battlefield. Battlefields were not meant to look like the empty space in her quarters between her and her scout. She did not want 9S to misunderstand her.

“I would not be able to follow such orders because I would immediately report to the bunker for decommission. It would be logical to assume that I had contracted a virus and misinterpreted my orders as a result. It would be preferable to be decommissioned than to mistakenly deactivate you.”

She hoped that was enough. She saw his features soften, his face still inappropriately expressive. The battle with the rogue YorHa units was still fresh in her mind, she was still analysing behaviour patterns to determine optimal combat strategies for future encounters with similar units. It felt wrong to have that information, though she could not say what “feeling wrong” meant. The information lived within her memory, in a storage folder marked for YorHa units. She noted their behaviour bore several deviations from previous training encounters and simulations, and for that reason these units each required additional documentation. As all of this was processed inside of her, 9S was looking at her, searching for some method of verifying what she had said. She did not have one that would suffice to her satisfaction, but 9S was more thoughtful than she was, and seemingly unrelated gestures could impress sincerity upon him better than words.

She bent down to rest her hands on his shoulders, judging the twitch of surprise at the contact to be within acceptable parameters and told him, with as much sincerity as she could muster, “Your presence is significantly correlated with my mission success. Operating without you would be… inefficient.”

He slapped her hands away, against her expectations. He looked like he wanted to say something, but after opening and closing his mouth several times he instead turned to walk across their shared quarters, his back to her.

It was distressing in a way she could not understand, to see him react like this. Did he not understand her or was her reasoning incorrect? Did he have information that contradicted her own data? She did not know how to communicate these questions to him without causing further misunderstandings. She did not know how to make him understand her, understand the significance he had to her. The analysis of their fight with the rogue YorHa units they butchered finished calculating and freed up significant mental resources for the problem.

“9S I believe I am damaged.”

He turned on his heel, expression confused, obvious even through his visor. “What?”

“I am experiencing pain in my torso, however my system registers no damage to my physical form. I do not know the origin of this signal, but I felt it most strongly when you began to walk away. Until such time as we have diagnosed the cause, please don’t…. please don’t walk away from me. Please don’t leave me.”

Her eyes registered the evacuation of liquid from her tear ducts and this caused a modulation to her vocal pattern. “I don’t want you to leave me now. Please, I… I’m hurt. I’m hurt and I don’t know how to repair this damage.”

Anger faded completely from his face and he walked back towards her. He put his hand on her arms as he came within reach of her and this had the effect of increasing the evacuation of liquid around her eyes. She registered that her visor was becoming damp.

“Show me where you’re hurting,” he asked, voice gentle and soothing.

She reached a hand up to her chest and lightly touched the spot where she felt hollow and aching.

“There’s an old human remedy for problems like this,” 9S offered, “would you like me to try it?”

“Yes,” she said, without thinking the answer over. She did not believe humans could experience something as profoundly painful as this, but she trusted her scout’s knowledge. She trusted him.

9S bent at the waist, as formally as possible, and kissed the spot she had indicated.

“What.” She responded.

“It’s a human thing! When they get hurt, someone has to kiss it better.”

“Why would that help.” Did human saliva contain some kind of bacterial infection capable of repairing superficial damage? She did not know.

“I don’t know!” 9S retorted, playfully obstinate. “Did it help?”

2B considered, letting herself breath in and out to test the area’s sensitivity. The pain was still present, but not as obvious and not as threatening. She noticed that her tear ducts were once more closed and the weakness in her legs she believed was related had also begun to fade.

“I believe it is having some effect, however we should be more thorough in the interest of completely resolving the issue.”

9S smiled at that. “If you insist,” he said, letting her lead him from where they had been standing towards her bed.

He waited patiently for her to remove her equipment and remove several plugins before he assisted her with her uniform. Her clothes came off easier than software, 9S folded them neatly and placed them to the side while she laid down on her bed and made herself comfortable. 9S pulled a seat up alongside her, as close as he could get without physically mounting her.

Such a manual examination was a luxury they could rarely afford in the field, but she believed the hurt she was experiencing was worth the effort. Perhaps after he had assisted her, she would return the favour to ensure that his outburst was not the result of unseen damage. He started by moving his hands over the curves of her body, not trusting even his keen eyes to catch any imperfections. Though she had disabled many of her combat responses, the shiver that ran through her body as he touched vulnerable locations was entirely beyond her control. He smirked at her reaction and was perhaps more thorough in his examination of these areas than her injury warranted.

She tried to focus on the pleasant clean feeling of having her chassis opened, the tingle of static as he inspected every artificial muscle by hand. In truth her visor was still unpleasantly stuck to her skin where her fluid runoff earlier had soaked it and it was taking up a large part of her still conscious attention.

“Try the human cure again,” she instructed, not able to indicate where she would like him to attempt it. He did not wait for her to specify a location, instead pressing several quick kisses onto various important components. With each contact a spine-tingling jolt of static electricity ran through her safety capacitors and she knew academically that the kisses themselves couldn’t actually touch her internal working.

It still felt nice.

She let him continue for a few minutes, alternating between quick kisses and lifting his head out of her open chest cavity to see if there had been a response from her yet. At last she advised him that she believed his remedy had reached peak efficacy and they did not need to continue any longer. He pressed one final kiss down onto her primary circulatory motor before ensuring everything was in order and closing the panels of her rib cage back into place. He assisted her as she stood back up on feet still shaky from the maintenance, assisted her in putting her clothes back on and assisted her in restoring her equipment to its optimal layout. He looked so very pleased with himself.

When at last she was back to operating state, she pulled him in close to her body, telling herself that she was simply ensuring her operating temperature was in tune with her own. He reached around her waist and pulled his own body close to hers, which was helpful. The ache in her chest had largely disappeared, as had his anger at her earlier. She was still concerned about him having misunderstood her, so she took this chance to clarify for him.

“9S,” she said, “I believe I did not adequately describe my probable course of action in the hypothetical we discussed earlier.”

“2B, you don’t have to-”

“I would like to ensure that we understand each other. In the event that I was ordered to deactivate you, I would indeed turn myself over to YorHa for decommissioning. I would also ensure that every other YorHa unit that had received the same orders returned to the bunker with me, by force if necessary.”

She struggled with the next part, having not explained it adequately to herself before trying to communicate it to him.

“I did not deactivate the YorHa units we fought today because I received an order to do so. I destroyed them because I was concerned they might damage you as they resisted detainment.”

9S was silent, resting his head on her chest, on the place that no longer felt hollow and aching, because he had been inside of it.

“9S,” she said, finally feeling like she had the words he needed to hear. “If anything happened to you because of an order from YorHa, I would destroy every unit within my considerable attack range and then myself. I hope you understand.”

And from the way he held onto her, 2B could tell that he did.

**Author's Note:**

> At this point I'm actively delaying playing the game to write fic about it.
> 
> No spoilers in the comments, pretty please!


End file.
